The race for the Whatcom County Council may turn into one of the nation’s most important votes for climate change. That’s because the county is home to Cherry Point, the site of a massive proposed coal terminal—which, if constructed, would be the biggest coal terminal in North America, allowing 48 million tons of coal from the landlocked western US to reach Asian seaborne coal markets.

In Whatcom County, local authorities have a direct say over the land use and permitting decisions that will allow the project to go forward—or not. In other words, the composition of the Whatcom County Council matters a great deal to the future of the US coal industry. And as it happens, four of the seven members of the Council are up for re-election, which means that the races have become a virtual referendum on the highly controversial coal port.

Only a small fraction of the pro-coal money comes from Whatcom County, or anywhere in the Northwest for that matter. Almost all of it can be directly linked to firms or people with a strong financial interest in Northwest coal exports. And much of the coal money seems to originate from sources that tilt heavily toward Republican politics.

Global Coal Sales is also linked to Cloud Peak. According to reporting by Ralph Schwartz, (and othersources), the former head of export sales at Cloud Peak, Steve Read, took a job as executive VP of Global Coal Sales in May 2013.

Corbin and Barbara Robertson: $32,000

With each of them throwing in $16,000, Corbin and Barbara Robertson of Houston, Texas are easily the largest pro-coal individual donors in Whatcom County. As the Whatcom County Democrats have pointed out, the Robertsons are major league coal barons through their company, Quintana Minerals. In fact, according to a 2003 article in Forbes, “Robertson sits atop the largest private hoard in the nation—21 billion tons of reserves he has quietly amassed over three decades.

If the $3,500 contribution to Save Whatcom comes from Saturna Capital itself, as it appears, that makes it ripe for a local divestment campaign of some sort. If, on the other hand, the contribution actually originates from Kaiser or some other Saturna employee, then it is in clear violation of state election law and should be corrected immediately.

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Comments

Sandy Robson says:

October 21, 2013 at 1:12 pm

Corporations like Cloud Peak who has a contract with SSA/PIT for storing and exporting coal, Global Coal Sales which is part of Boich Companies which is part owner of Signal Peak Mine in Montana, and Corby Robertson who is the owner of the largest private US coal reserves and who owns many companies one of which is Quintana Maritime whose web link takes you to Excel Maritime Carriers Ltd. And guess what they do? They are an independent shipping company operating a fleet of dry bulk vessels and providing world-wide seaborne transportation services. Coal is one of the dry bulk cargoes they ship.

These contributors all stand to privately gain from getting the proposed coal terminal permitted, are trying to stack the deck trying to get the particular county council candidates elected who are most likely to approve the permits.

It also seems highly unethical for the companies (SSA/PIT) and BNSF who are the actual permit applicants to contribute money, whether indirectly ($30K from PIT and $10K to the WA state Republican Party which then funnels the money to the County Republican Party and then to the coffers of the county council candidates), or as Eric DePlace referred to in this article, directly to the pro-Cherry Point Coal terminal SaveWhatcom PAC which funds the 4 conservative county council candidates, who if elected, will be sitting in a quasi-judicial role for the permit decisions.

Nicholas Kaiser (of Saturna) gave $900 to William Knutzen, $900 to Kathleen Kershner, $900 to Ben Elenbaas, $900 to Michelle Luke, $1,100 to Dan Robbins, all of whom are supported candidates for County Commission and Port of Bellingham on the SaveWhatcom website. The candidate for Port of Bellingham that they did not contribute money to – Ken Bell – is listed at Patrick K Bell in the disclosures. Not sure if there is a Patrick K Bell running or if he is using his middle name.

A close observer of Whatcom County politics wrote me yesterday to add the following:

“FYI, Nick Kaiser is the sugar daddy of Whatcom GOP. In the 2009 county council races he dumped $19K into the Kathy Kershner campaign, nearly half of the $45K she raised to defeat incumbent Dan McShane. That was the race that tipped the balance to the conservative faction. Kershner is running again, Kaiser has $900 contribution.”